The Polk County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) in Oregon is partnering with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde to protect ancestral lands and implement forest management practices with a $1.7 million grant awarded through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).

The efforts aim to enhance and restore Oregon white oak habitat and associated wildlife species on private lands in Polk County, in part by creating habitat corridors and adding wildlife forage. The plan also includes acquiring three permanently conserved tribal ancestral lands through the Willamette Wildlife Mitigation Fund and teach private landowners the tribal practices for maintaining oak habitat.

“They were maintaining this kind of habitat for over 400 years before anyone else got here,” said Karin Stutzman, Polk County SWCD district manager. “Their management techniques were accomplished without using chemicals or machines. That’s a very valuable set of knowledge to know.”

About 1,900 acres total will be impacted by the RCPP project, including 740 acres of privately-owned land. Enhancements include creating habitat corridors that provide unobstructed travel for wildlife throughout the county and connecting to other similar corridors in neighboring counties. Restoration of the privately-owned land includes acreage in the Grand Ronde Community, the county and the Airlie-Haybeck Oaks Conservation Opportunity Area.

Nearly $2 million in contributions from partners will support permanently protected conservation easements, and state grant funding will complement oak restoration work. There also will be technical assistance and outreach activities.

“There’s a desire by constituents in the county that want to preserve that ecology,” Stutzman said. “It’s unique, it’s historical, and it’s greatly in decline.”

The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde will provide education on their traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in managing oak habitat conditions and uses. Modern techniques modeling TEK will include the use of fire crews and brush burns.

Tribal people are the best stewards of the land. The tribal elders and members will provide valuable information about historical oak habitat conditions and uses. Workshops will be held to train anyone who wants to know about this. It will help landowners manage savanna and oak habitat by building skills to implement another option to increase sustainability and create ecologically-based practices.

“Tribal people are the best stewards of the land,” Stutzman said. “The tribal elders and members will provide valuable information about historical oak habitat conditions and uses. Workshops will be held to train anyone who wants to know about this. It will help landowners manage savanna and oak habitat by building skills to implement another option to increase sustainability and create ecologically-based practices.”

“If there are less invasive and less harmful ways to improve habitat, then everyone needs to know that,” Stutzman said.

The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde has a fire crew that can implement the underbrush burning on their lands and incorporate that on private lands, as warranted. There also will be thinning cuts to rid the areas of Douglas firs, cherry trees, English hawthorn and poison oak, blackberries and other weedy species.

Treatments will take place over a five-year period and will include chemical spraying and mowing, logging and creating slash piles, seeding of native species, forbs and grasses and some spot spraying.

Cleaning out the uplands and planting grasses–even some non-native–will help keep elk in their own habitat instead of roaming down to farms for commercial wheat and grass to feed on, Stutzman said. Thinning will allow the oaks room to grow with more resistant bark and will assist in maintaining the correct habitat for wildlife such as elk, fox and deer.

“It’s a rare and declining habitat that provides a lot of value in our county,” Stutzman said. “With this funding and this partnership, we will have integrated conservation efforts.”